Daniel and Arlen
by MaceWindovahkiin117
Summary: Nick Valentine invents a teleportation device, but something goes wrong. Daniel, the Sole Survivor, finds himself in Skyrim with Arlen, the Dragonborn.
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

"Mister Daniel! How very pleasant to see you, sir!"

"Hey, Codsworth," Daniel said. He dropped into a chair, leaning his sniper rifle, Kindness, against the wall of his steel house. Kindness had originally been called Tinker Tom Special, but Daniel had upgraded it. He had replaced the steel barrel with a light aluminum one, Added a recoil-compensating stock, enhanced the suppressor, and greatly increased the velocity and power that the receiver could manage. The last thing Daniel had done was to carve _Kindness_ into the side of the weapon. He started to lean back, but then remembered his sword, Kremvh's Tooth. It was a machete, but jagged and looked like it had been tossed through a wood chipper. That was what made it so deadly. Daniel pulled it from his back and leaned it up next to Kindness. Finally, he pulled the Deliverer from his thigh-holster and laid it across his white-clad lap. This was a small pistol, what used to be called a PP7. It was silenced, with a long barrel, a comfort grip, and a receiver that had been enhanced almost as much as Kindness's. He was dressed in a white pinstriped suit, and had actually gotten his hands on some white dress-shoes in the Commonwealth. His beard was trimmed to a point, and his mustache was curled at the ends. They weren't separate, but were rather all one piece of facial hair. His hair was pushed up into a stylish version of a pompadour. Codsworth spoke again.

"I am pleased to announce that Mister Valentine has completed his teleportation device. But, sir... he will need your Courser Chip. If that is, um... quite alright?"

"Of course, Codsworth." Daniel said, a bit absentmindedly. "Codsworth-"

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you be willing to-"

"Of course, sir. Anything you ask, sir."

"let me make some changes-"

"Yes, sir!"

"to your modeling?"

"Pardon?"

Daniel laughed at the sudden lack of readiness to obey. "I'd like to make you a Stealth Boy Assaultron. It's the only way I'd allow you to accompany me in my travels."

"Of course, sir. I thought perhaps you would try to make me a Sentry Bot." Daniel smiled, no longer uncomfortable.

"Never, Codsworth." Now much happier, Daniel picked up his weapons and made his way to Nick Valentine. He handed over the Courser Chip, it was inserted, and Daniel stepped into the machine. It fired up, and when it was finished, Daniel stepped out. Trees surrounded him, but something was wrong. The teleportation device was gone, and there was a fur-clad axman in its place. Before Daniel could draw Kremvh's Tooth, an arrow appeared in the man's chest. Instead of continuing to pull out the sword, Daniel drew the deliverer, spun, and dropped to one knee. When he raised the pistol, he found that his sights were trained on a hooded man. He was dressed in skin-tight black leather, including a hood, with scraps of studded red leather armor. He had a black bow in his hands, with an arrow already nocked and drawn, trained directly at Daniel's neck.

"Who are you?" He asked calmly.

"You first." Daniel was not afraid of this man.

"Fine. I'm Arlen. Dragonborn, Harbinger of the Companions, Listener for the Dark Brotherhood, Nightingale, Leader of the Thieve's guild, Vanquisher of Alduin, Archmage of the College of Winterhold, and countless other not-so-worth-the-trouble titles. Although, _killer of mysterious man in the woods_ has a nice ring to it." The bow had lowered as Arlen had spoken, and he raised it again.

"My turn. Daniel, Sole Survivor, Destroyer of the Institute, Codename Phantom of the Railroad, Destroyer of the Brotherhood of Steel in the Commonwealth, Detective under Nick Valentine, Killer of the Mechanist, and best sniper in America."

"Not sure what in Talos's name America is, but I'm the greatest assassin of Tamriel." Suddenly, and without warning, a dragon, like the stories Daniel was told in his youth, landed between them. Daniel drew Kremvh's Tooth in his right hand, switching the Deliverer to his left. As six arrows flew towards the dragon from Arlen, Daniel charged forward, firing as he went. When he reached the dragon, he leapt forward and thrust Kremvh's Tooth through its eye, killing it instantly. He pulled himself up onto the dragon's head, and stabbed it in the base of the skull for good measure.

Arlen looked utterly astonished. "Oh, I think we'll get along just fine."


	2. Chapter 2: Giants

Falkreath was a pretty cool Hold, as far as Daniel was concerned. Arlen kept saying "it's one of the worst," and "wait until you see Windhelm," or "Whiterun," or "Markarth." Daniel, of course, had no idea what any of those words meant, but after about the sixth time Arlen said "Wait until you see Whiterun," Daniel kept his mouth shut. They didn't run into any more dragons, but every once in a while, Arlen would suddenly duck into the underbrush and be lost to Daniel's sight. When he returned, they would 'randomly' come across some dead beast. Only once did Daniel recognize a werewolf. Other than that they looked like people made of wood, and gorillas with three eyes, wicked-long claws, and spikes on their shoulders. Finally, they found their way out of the pine forest. Daniel gasped.

Laid out before him were miles of flat, uninhabited land. In the distance, Daniel could see that the plains turned into rolling hills, until they reached the tallest one. Atop that was the most magnificent castle Daniel had ever seen. To be fair, he had only seen one other castle, and then he had had to kill a Mirelurk Queen while he was there. Near the castle were many farms, and a road leading up past a mountain that was easily tens of thousands of feet tall. Daniel could see deer meandering through the tall yellow grass, and dark shapes slinking around, and even, in the far distance, a man that could have been five times as large as he. Arlen pulled out his bow, and Daniel noticed that one of the dark shapes was creeping toward them. Daniel moved much more swiftly than Arlen could, ripping the Deliverer from its holster and firing off three shots. He heard a yelp, and the shape collapsed. Daniel then pulled out kindness, and looked through the scope. With the magnification, he could see the giant men more clearly. Their skin was gray, and had swirls and runes of some sort in it. They were dressed in furs, and carried tree branches with stones tied to the tops. A few of them were leading large, furry creatures... mammoths, he remembered. Daniel decided to try his luck with one. He trained Kindness's scope on one of the giant's heads, and fired. The creature fell instantly, but the others turned toward the two men. They were smart.

The giants began running toward Arlen and Daniel, and Arlen promptly disappeared. As they went, other giants rose from lying down and ran out from the hills until there were about two dozen of them, and half a dozen mammoths charging toward Daniel. He raised Kindness, firing at them, dropping two for every three shots, but Kindness was bolt action. Three shots took about eight seconds. After about thirty seconds, only six were dead, and there were still maybe twenty charging at him. Suddenly, Arlen was on top of one, plunging a curved dagger into the top of its head. He leaped onto another, slit its throat, and jumped onto its mammoth. It reared its head and began to open its mouth, and Arlen dropped, pulling his bow out and firing two arrows into the beast's maw. Its eyes bulged and it collapsed. Arlen landed, charged forward, ripping a greatsword from... somewhere, and cutting a giant's legs out from under him. When it face planted, Arlen charged forward and cut off its head. In those few seconds, this... Dragonborn, was it? This Dragonborn had cut down the giants' numbers from about twenty to about seventeen, and killed one of the monstrous beasts that accompanied them. Daniel set down Kindness, pulling out the Deliverer. He fired at each of the giants once, then panned back and fired at them again. He went back and forth in this manner until his extended clip was empty, at which point he reloaded and restarted the process. After a few clips and thirty seconds, Daniel had killed seven and Arlen had killed three more mammoths. Now Daniel could count them accurately. There were three mammoths and eight giants. Daniel fired half a clip into one of the giants before he fell, and Daniel emptied the clip completely on another. Six more. Arlen killed another mammoth, leaving two. Daniel picked up Kindness again, reloaded its magazine, and killed two more giants. They were close enough now that he could kill one per bullet he fired. By the time they were too close for Kindness, there were no Mammoths left, and only four giants. Arlen killed one, and Daniel pulled out Kremvh's Tooth. One reached him, and swung its club at him. He simply jumped, landing on the club and avoiding the shockwave it made. When the club bounced off the ground, it launched Daniel up toward the giant's head. He hadn't expected that to happen, but it was a welcome coincidence. The giant's eyes widened, and the bloodthirsty grin behind the beard disappeared. Daniel reared the sword back, waited one second, two, three... and thrust it into the giant's eye socket. He looked up, and found that Arlen had been snatched out of the air. He was trapped in the final giant's hand. Right before Daniel's eyes, the giant simply tossed Arlen over his shoulder. The Dragonborn flew into the air high enough that Daniel couldn't see him anymore. Daniel didn't like Arlen yet, or trust him, or even know him. But without Arlen's skill, Daniel would be facing a dozen giants still. Now, he _was_ without Arlen's skill. The Sole Survivor screamed, leaping from the dead giant to the other one. It looked surprised at the new arrival on its shoulder, and reached up to grab him. Daniel jumped up, grabbed the giant's ear, and pulled himself up onto the enormous head. The giant was angry now, but couldn't do anything about Kremvh's Tooth that was flying toward his face. Daniel turned half of a front flip to put the sword into the giant's nose, then ripped it out and completed the trick. He landed, facing the castle on the hill. The giant, now behind him, started to tip forward, and when he finally flopped to the ground, Daniel was standing between his knees, looking for all the world like a fantasy hero. Suddenly, fifty or so men rushed to the scene. They were dressed in yellow, with cone-shaped full face helmets and scaly armor on. They had furry boots and gloves, and every one of them had axes or swords. This, if nothing else, confirmed for Daniel that this was a fantasy, medieval, magical world that he had been transported into.

"Who're you?"

"What's that you're wearing?"

"What happened here?" Three people spoke at once. One of them gave his comrades a look, although with the full face helmets they couldn't tell what it was.

"What happened here?" He asked after a moment.

"I killed some giants." Daniel looked at him seriously. The other men burst out laughing, then.

"You killed some giants? What we saw from the wall was a bunch of them running across the plains, collapsing. You're telling me that you killed all of those, at this distance, without no magic, bow, or arrows?"

"No, I had some help."

"And where's this help now? Did _he_ have any magic, any bow, or any arrows?" A second man spoke this time.

"Well, he had a bow, but he only shot twice."

"He shot twice, and all of these are dead, now?" Another joined the conversation.

"He had a dagger..."

"And if he was with you, why are the corpses spread out over half a league?" Four men were ganging up on him now.

"He wasn't with me."

"Oh, and I suppose he outran thirty giants long enough to kill all of them. Is that it?"

"No, he only had to outrun one." Daniel still wasn't sure where this was going.

"And what then? He controlled its mind?" A sixth guard chuckled. Daniel had once seen a Deathclaw being attacked by a group of Feral Ghouls. He was starting to feel a bit like that Deathclaw.

"No," Daniel said, starting to get a bit frustrated. "He killed it and jumped onto another."

"Oh, so he's an athletic one, is he?" The first man spoke again.

"Yes, in fact."

"And, where were you while he was doing all of the work?"

"I was shooting." Daniel's frustration grew a bit more.

"But, I thought you said you didn't have a bow?"

"No, I had this. Daniel stepped back and picked up the Deliverer.

"And what, pray tell, is _this_?" A man joined the conversation that hadn't spoken before.

"The Deliverer."

"Sounds more like a title than an object."

"Fine. It's a pistol."

"Well, now, that sounds like an object, but not one I recognize."

"I have heard of it." The first man didn't sound so amused now. "Where'd you get that? How empty did your pockets get for it?" Daniel raised an eyebrow.

"I found it."

Some of the men gasped. "You found that?"

"Yeah. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal? The big-! Do you know what a pistol is? There're only a few of those been found in Tamriel, and all of them in Dwemer ruins! Pistols are Dwemer weapons, and even our best blacksmiths can't figure out what makes them work. That's the big deal, lad."

 _Tamriel? Dwemer? What's this gibberish?_ Daniel thought. "I've got a rifle, too."

"A rifle!?" The first man exploded. "A rifle _AND_ a pistol! How much gold you want for them?"

"Oho!" Now it was Daniel's turn to explode. "You're not taking my guns!"

"No, no, _buying_ -"

"No! These are my guns, and I _use_ them!" Now several guards exploded at once.

"You USE your guns? Are you insane? You'll break them!"

"I'LL BREAK YOU!" Daniel raised the Deliverer, but suddenly didn't have it. He turned, and found that Arlen had taken it.

"Thane! I mean, Dragonborn! I mean, Captain! I mean, Harbinger! I mean, sir?" Arlen looked amused.

"Stand down. These are not the Dwemer weapons that people have been finding. These are... different. But, nonetheless, he used them to kill these giants. You may return to Whiterun. We'll be along in a moment."

"Yes, sir!" The guards ran off toward the castle.

"Well," Daniel said. "it seems _someone_ has quite a bit of power around Whiterun."

Arlen looked confused. "Who?"


	3. Chapter 3: Whiterun

No matter how much Daniel pried, Arlen wouldn't tell him how he survived being thrown by the giant. Every time Daniel asked, he was stared at for several seconds before Arlen replied, "Magic," as if Daniel should have figured that out by now. It wasn't fair, according to Daniel. He had spent an hour trying to get Arlen to grasp the concepts of sarcasm and irony, but he couldn't get an in-depth answer out of Arlen. Finally, after the fifth time he heard the word _magic,_ Daniel switched to a different topic.

"What's a Dragonborn?" He asked. This seemed to be a topic that finally got Arlen's interest. His face became animated as he described everything about himself to Daniel. As Arlen's excitement grew, Daniel's eyes widened, almost in direct proportions.

"So, lemme get this straight. You, the Dragonborn, have the ability to yell words in a different language that create magical results. You are the one and only hope for the world against the dragons, because you share their blood and can absorb their souls. You killed the great dragon Alduin, who, according to destiny and fate and whatever, was supposed to eat the world. Right?" Arlen nodded, as if the information was no big deal. "Can-" Daniel was a bit nervous about what the results of what he was asking might be. "Can you show me a Holler?"

"A Shout, you mean?" Arlen smiled. Daniel nodded, a bit embarrassed. Arlen nodded. He drew breath, and Daniel unconsciously held his. " _Yol toor shul!_ " Fire sprang from Arlen's open mouth, charring and burning everything in its path, which was long indeed. By the time the ring of fire died away-fifty meters ahead-there was a clear strip in the grass of hard, black, crunchy ground. Before the fire could spread across the long grass like it was made of gasoline, Arlen shouted again. " _Fo krah diin!_ " This time it was a ring of ice, and it froze the fire where it was, leaving what appeared to be blue-tinted glass around lava. Daniel gaped at Arlen, waiting for some sort of explanation, before he realized that it had been explained beforehand.

"You're turn. Where do you come from?" Arlen asked.

"Massachusetts, USA, Earth." He could tell that this wasn't any alternate earth. This was a different planet altogether. "It was destroyed by nuclear-" Daniel stopped and tried to figure out how to explain it without using futuristic jargon. "poisonous... fire. It was destroyed by poisonous fire, and it made everything in it some sort of strange creature, with no thought or peace, just violence and death."

"Sounds bad."

"Not as bad as dragons." Daniel challenged.

"Equal." Arlen said, after some thought. "So, can you summon a small version of this poisonous fire?"

"No, of course not. We don't have magic where I come from."

"That's a shame." And with that, Arlen threw a fireball up into the air, and caught it on the way back down, then formed it into a hand, used the fire hand to draw his dagger, then released the magic and snatched his dagger out of the air. Daniel raised his eyebrows.

"That was nothing compared to what I can do!" Daniel joked.

"Really?" Arlen said. "I though that was pretty impressive. I've certainly never done that before just now... Ah. Sarcasm."

"Yes." Daniel smiled. "So, could you teach me how to smith?" He was planning on making some spare bullets for his weapons, and doubted that he could find anywhere to buy them around here.

"Sure."

They reached the city, and Arlen wanted to get straight to smithing. He taught Daniel how to make daggers, swords, arrows, and even bows, but in the end Daniel convinced him to make bullets for him. Arlen knew what they were for, and knew that Daniel wouldn't be able to make them himself. In the end, Daniel came out with more bullets that he had started with. He then went to a trader to get rid of some of the things he knew would be useless here. He dropped a gold pocket watch, a silver pocket watch, his box of caps, and all of his clothes on the desk the first trader he found. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, of course, but decided to sell his suit for some armor.

The trader took apart the watches, weighed and bit the caps, and tried to rip the suit. In the end, he gave Daniel a hefty bag of gold in return. Daniel went back to the blacksmith, and bought himself some armor that Arlen said he had sold to the man a few week earlier. The blacksmith gave him, for all of his gold, dark gray scaly armor, including greaves and bracers, with a black cloak and hood, attached to which was an armored facemask. Arlen found that together it was much lighter that in seemed, and he knew it would help him hide at night. Based on Arlen's equipment, Daniel guessed that they would be spending a lot of time hiding at night.

Finally, after all of their selling a buying and making, Daniel had a thought. "Where did you get that great sword on the plains, and where did it go?"

"What do you mean? I have a Sack of Collecting, like everyone else." Arlen untied a pouch from his belt and held it up for Daniel to see. Daniel still looked confused, so Arlen explained. "This will stay this size no matter what I put in it. It completely cancels the size of the object, and cuts the weight in half. The great sword is ten pounds, but I'm only hefting five pounds of it, and it's all contained in this bag." With that, he drew the sword out of the bag, which was only about four by four inches. Arlen kept going, though, pulling out arrows, potions, and a few scrolls. "Do you want one?" He asked.

Daniel nodded enthusiastically.

"Good, because I have an extra." Arlen handed another pouch to Daniel, who piled all of his ammunition into the bag. When he was finished, Arlen spoke again. "There's a dragon coming." Daniel wanted to ask how he knew that, but before he could, a mighty roar echoed through the city. "No," Arlen said, still calm. "Four dragons."


End file.
